All of Amy Millett's students have to stay after school.

Millett '01 teaches at the Epiphany School, a free, private school for students in grades 5-8 in Dorchester, Mass. All of the students' families are at or below the poverty line. Many of the students are in state foster care.

The school day at Epiphany is 12 hours long, every day. Students arrive at 8 a.m., work in class until 3 o'clock. They do sports, sit down for dinner, then study until 8 p.m. "They love it," Millett said. "Most of them are happier here than they are at home."

She is, too. Pursuing her goal of teaching in an inner-city public school, Millett was hired the summer after graduation from Colby and plunged right in. She teaches, coaches track, swimming and cross-country, lives in Dorchester like her students and visits them on weekends. "I never leave the job," she said recently, squeezing in a phone call while her kids were at recess. "I take it home. I take it with me wherever I go."

It's exhausting but rewarding, especially when children make strides, she said. "You see light in every child."